Most of Europe is too concerned with the future of Nato and the damage wrought to Europe's transatlantic relationship to go chest-beating for a European army.

The summit, which has been ridiculed by British and American officials, was called by the Belgians months ago when France and Germany still believed they could muscle the US into delaying the invasion of Iraq.

The summit's length and contents have been pared down but its agenda reflects an ambition to establish Europe as a diplomatic and military counterweight to America. That ambition has been fuelled rather than sapped by the war.

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The four countries will lay the groundwork for a joint military command, a European armaments agency, which will prevent countries duplicating their equipment and resources, and a European defence college.

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said they "risk sending a message of division about the creation of a defence policy separate from Nato".

Critics say the summit bears no relation to the realities of an expanding Europe in which several new members put far more trust in Nato, which helped free them from the Soviet Union, than a still undefined Franco-German scheme.

France will oppose US plans to ask the United Nations this week to approve an allied authority to run Iraq and lift the sanctions which give the UN control of Iraqi oil. Instead, France has called simply for the suspension of civilian sanctions.

President Jacques Chirac believes that for France to sanction the allied authority and give it rather than the UN control over oil would be to legitimise the invasion, which he still regards as illegal.